Create ID Definitions and Sequence Generators

Administrator Guide

Security:

Set Up: Company General
domain in the Common Financial Management functional area.

Set Up: Contact Info, IDs, and Personal Data
domain in the Contact Information functional area.

Set Up: System
domain in the System functional area.

ID definitions specify the format of IDs that Workday generates for various business objects and fields. With the [seq] variable, the ID definition becomes a sequence generator. A sequence generator identifies people, positions, incidents, or fields with a number that is unique within a specified time period.

Workday provides 2 types of sequence generators:

Sequence generators that generate sequences that are unique, but might have numbering gaps. These sequence generators enable you to:

Restart the sequence at the beginning of the day, month, or year, and at a specified sequence number.

Specify a behavior should the sequence overflow.

You create these sequence generators by accessing the

Create ID Definition / Sequence Generator

task.

Sequence generators that generate sequences that never have gaps. Since these sequences are gapless, you can't select a restart period or overflow behavior. You might use this type of sequence generator when it's important to maintain the sequence, such as when your auditors require it. You create these sequence generators by accessing the

Create ID Definition / Gapless Sequence Generator

task.

You can create as many ID definitions and sequence generators as you need. Access the

Edit Tenant Setup

tasks to select which ones to use for invoices, orders, receipts, employees, beneficiaries, and so on.

You can create both sequence generator types, but Workday determines which types you can specify on an

Edit Tenant Setup

task for a given situation. Example: You can't use gapless sequence generators for spend authorizations, but can use them for miscellaneous payment requests on the

Edit Tenant Setup - Financials

task.

You can override some selections for a specific company by accessing the

Edit Company ID Definitions

task. If you don't specify an ID definition, Workday generates its own internal ID codes.

Sequence Generator IDs assign names to sequences used in Workday applications. You can view a specific ID definition in the

View ID Definition / Sequence Generator

and

View ID Definition / Gapless Sequence Generator

reports.

Access 1 of these tasks to create the type of sequence generator that you require:

Create ID Definition / Sequence Generator

Create ID Definition / Gapless Sequence Generator

You can also select the sequence generator creation task directly in fields on the

Edit Tenant Setup

task where they're used. Only the task for the type of sequence generator that Workday allows for that field displays in the drop-down list.

In the

Increment Sequence ID By

field, enter a nonzero value by which the sequence number increases each time Workday generates a new ID.

(Optional) Use

Padding

to indicate the number of digits present in the sequence.

Enter a large enough padding value so that the sequence doesn't encounter an overflow condition. Workday recommends a padding value of at least 6.

If the sequence exceeds the number of digits you enter here, the

Sequence ID Overflow Behavior

setting determines the next number in the sequence.

If you enter a zero, or don't enter a value in the

Padding

field:

The sequence number increases indefinitely.

Workday populates

Sequence ID Overflow Behavior

with

Automatically Ignore Padding

In the

Sequence ID Format

field, specify a format for the identifier.

You can use any text string with these 4 special variables. The date-related values represent the date when the task generates the ID.

Option	Description
[seq]	The sequence number, which: Increases by the value specified in the Increment Sequence ID By field. Contains the number of digits specified in the Padding field. Workday uses a separate sequence for each ID definition that uses this variable.
[day]	Day of the month in two-digit format, 01 - 31.
[month]	Month in two-digit format, 01 - 12.
[year]	Year in four-digit format. Example: 2020.

The

Example Sequence

field displays the next sequence ID, based on the

Sequence ID Format

and other current sequence generator settings.

If you set the

Restart Frequency

interval, ensure that the generated sequence number is unique by including the specific time period in the format. Example: If the

Restart Frequency

time period is Month
, include [month] and [year] in the format. Make sure that the padding value is large enough that the sequence generator doesn't encounter an overflow condition during the time period. The

Restart Frequency

field isn't available for gapless sequence generators.

Avoid white space in the format if the sequence numbers might generate URLs. Example: Some external career sites add the Job Requisition ID (generated during a Job Requisitions Integration) to the job posting URL. If a site doesn't encode special characters, such as spaces, the result is an invalid URL.

For these business objects, Workday uses the sequence generator ID you set up as the integration reference ID:

Advance Ship Notice

Purchase Order

Purchase Order Acknowledgment

Receipts

Request for Quote (RFQ) Awards

Requisition

RFQ Response

For the business objects, if:

You have multiple companies.

You want Workday to generate IDs in numeric order for each company.

Enter numbers with a wide gap in between the

Last Sequence Used

for the sequence generator for each company. Access the

Edit Company ID

task to assign these unique sequence generators to companies in your tenant.

Example: An administrator enters 1000001 in the

Last Sequence Used

field for the sequence generator for Company A. They also enter 2000002 in the

Last Sequence Used

field for the sequence generator for Company B.

The result is separate sequence generators create IDs in numeric order on purchase orders for each company:

PO#1 - ID of Company A: CA-PO-2018-09-1000001

PO#2 - ID of Company A: CA-PO-2018-09-1000002

PO#3 - ID of Company B: CB-PO-2018-09-2000002

PO#4 - ID of Company B: CB-PO-2018-09-2000003

Workday combines these sequence generators to provide IDs across companies if you:

Keep the

Last Sequence Used

field the same.

Only provide a small gap between numbers.

The result is gaps between ID numbers on procurement documents for companies.

Example: An administrator enters the same number in the

Last Sequence Used

field for each sequence generator for Company A and Company B.

The result is the same sequence generator provides ID numbers generated across companies on their purchase orders:

PO#1 - ID of Company A: PO-2018-09-00001

PO#2 - ID of Company B: PO-2018-09-00002

PO#3 - ID of Company B: PO-2018-09-00003

PO#4 - ID of Company A: PO-2018-09-00004

(Optional) To reset the [seq] value to an initial value at regular time intervals, consider:

Option	Description
Restart Frequency	The time interval when the [seq] variable starts again at the Restart Number value. The options are Day , Month , or Year ; leave the field blank if you want [seq] to be unique within this ID definition. Days start at 12:01 AM. Months start at 12:01 AM on the first of that month. Years start at 12:01 AM on the first of January. If you set a Restart Frequency and set up Workday to continue a sequence from a different ID generation system, you must set: A valid Last Date Used . A nonzero Last Sequence Used .
Restart Number	The value you want [seq] to start at when you first use the ID definition, and every time the sequence restarts.
Time Zone Usage	An alternate time zone on which to base the interval specified in the Restart Frequency field. This value doesn’t indicate when the ID generation actually occurs. Workday uses this value only to localize the date to the specified time zone. If you don’t specify a time zone, Workday uses Pacific Standard Time/Pacific Daylight Time (PST/PDT).

These fields aren't available for gapless sequence generators.

(Optional) In the

Sequence ID Overflow Behavior

field, configure how you want Workday to handle potential sequence identifier overflow conditions. As you complete the field, consider:

Option	Description
Allow Overflow with Truncated Sequences	Workday truncates the most significant digit of the sequence number when an overflow condition occurs. Example: With a Padding value of 3, the next sequence number after 999 is 1000, but the 1 gets truncated, so the next value displays as 000.
Automatically Ignore Padding	The sequence generator ignores the Padding value when an overflow condition occurs. Example: With a Padding value of 3, the next sequence number after 999 is 1000.

If the

Padding

value is a zero, Workday automatically selects the

Automatically Ignore Padding

option. If the padding is a value other than zero, you can select either option. Workday recommends

Automatically Ignore Padding

, as the sequence generator can produce duplicate numbers that can impact downstream systems when it doesn't ignore padding. Example: A sequence generator for ID cards that only has space for 3 digits.

You can't select the

Sequence ID Overflow Behavior

for gapless sequence generators.

(Optional) In the

Override Tenant Setup Overflow Notification Group

field, select security groups for this sequence generator that will override the default overflow notification security groups. Workday automatically sends a notification to the overflow notification security groups when the sequence reaches 80% of the limit imposed by the

Padding

value. It then sends out notifications in 5% increments afterward.

If you don't select security groups in this field, Workday sends these overflow notifications to:

The security groups that you select in the

Default Sequence Generator Notification Group

field on the

Edit Tenant Setup - System

task.

The default security groups that Workday specifies for overflow notifications, if you don't select default overflow notification security groups on the

Edit Tenant Setup - System

task.

(Optional) If you previously used a different ID generation system and you want Workday to continue that sequence, consider:

Option	Description
Last Sequence Used	The last sequence number used in your previous ID generation system.
Last Date Used	The date on which your previous ID generation system generated the last sequence number.

Once Workday starts using the new sequence generator, it no longer uses these 2 fields.

If you specify

Last Date Used

and an interval for

Restart Frequency

, Workday compares the current date and restart frequency. It then sets the sequence number accordingly. Example: If you specify:

45 for the

Last Sequence Used

May 15, 2020 as the

Last Date Used

Month
as the

Restart Frequency

5 for

Increment Sequence ID By

1 for the

Restart Number

The initial sequence number for the sequence generator will be:

Fifty (50) if the current date is in May.

One (1) if the current date is in June.

(Optional) Select the

Low Volume

check box to ensure that sequences generated by the sequence generator don't have gaps.

Select the check box when you experience both of these situations:

The sequence that Workday generates isn't used in high volume transactions. Example: Integration Sequencing.

You experience unwanted gaps in the generated sequence.

If you'll use the sequence generator in a scramble method to scramble tenant data, don't select the

Low Volume

check box.

(Optional) In the

Web Service

section, enter a meaningful name in the

Reference ID

field. You can use this ID to identify specific sequences in Workday Financial Management, Payroll, and HCM applications. See the application documentation for more information on how your specific application uses this field.

You can run the

Sequence Generator Padding Report

to monitor sequence generators for potential overflow issues. For each sequence generator, the report displays a percent usage metric that indicates how close the current sequence number is to the maximum sequence number allotted. The report also displays the overflow behavior and notification groups for each sequence generator.

Steps: Scramble Tenant Data

Reference: Edit Tenant Setup - System

Workday Community: Sequence Generator Padding FAQ